Ken Ham in the Australian Press

This comes from the website News.com.au, which doesn’t further identify itself, but it seems to be the online presence of several Australian newspapers. Wikipedia says it’s an Australian news and entertainment website owned by News Corp Australia, which is one of Australia’s largest media companies. That’s all we know, but it’s enough.

Outspoken creationist Ken Ham is once again raising the hackles of scientists, claiming he is on the verge of proving dinosaurs were roaming the earth only a few thousand years ago.

It’s good to see that the press on the underside of the Earth is proudly tracking the career of their native son, Ken Ham (ol’ Hambo). As you know he’s the Australian entrepreneur who has become the ayatollah of Appalachia, famed for his creationist ministry, Answers in Genesis (AIG) and for the mind-boggling Creation Museum.

Then they tell us:

The former Queensland science teacher, who took on celebrated American scientist Bill Nye in a notorious public debate on creationism last year, who opened the $40m Creation Museum in America and is currently building a Noah’s ark in Kentucky, says he will soon unveil evidence that dinosaurs once lived peacefully alongside Adam and Eve.

Everyone knew that Bill Nye shouldn’t have agreed to that debate. Other than Hambo’s silly roadside tourist attractions, it’s his only claim to fame. Let’s read on:

Together with creation scientist Dr. David Menton, Mr Ham says he will soon publish findings that he suggests will be world-changing — and dispel current evidence that dinosaurs roamed the earth over 65 million years ago.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! What are their “findings,” and in what peer-reviewed journal will they be published? The news story continues:

It is understood Mr Ham will claim that a bunch of donated Edmontosaurus bones are only a few thousand years old, based on the fact that they still contain remnants of bone marrow. Soft tissue surviving in dinosaur bones isn’t an entirely new idea — a Tyrannosaurus Rex bone with soft tissue still present was discovered a decade ago.

Ken Ham routinely dismisses findings of palaeontologists, geologists, and other scientists who look at evidence to determine what Earth must have been like before recorded history. Mr Ham has asserted that scientists cannot claim to have proof of their theories if they weren’t there at the time to observe those theories in action.

Ol’ Hambo is forever sneering at what he calls “historical science,” by asking Were you there? He claims that only eye-witness testimony — the kind he finds in the bible — is reliable. We discuss that under the section “Operational” science vs. “Historical” (origins) science in Common Creationist Claims Confuted. Moving along:

Bafflingly, in a new post on the pro-creationism website Answers In Genesis, Ken Ham now asserts that Dr. David Menton can indeed look at fossilised dinosaur bones and determine things that happened before either of them was born — as long as it supports his own ideas.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Even the Australian press can readily see the absurdity of Hambo’s arguments. Maybe they’re not so proud of their native son. We looked, but couldn’t find the article at Hambo’s website that they’re talking about. It doesn’t matter. We already know what it says and why it’s wrong. But Hambo’s drooling fans will gobble it up anyway. Here’s the rest of the article:

Tens of thousands of creationists flock to Mr Ham’s hi-tech Hollywood-style Creation Museum in Kentucky each year where they can see animatronic Adam and Eves interacting with a peaceful looking T.Rex, among other attractions.

Yes, the creationists are traveling the back roads of rural Kentucky to drink from Hambo’s magical fountain of drool. It’s not the yellow-brick road to Oz, but the wizard at the destination is just as authentic.

25 responses to “Ken Ham in the Australian Press”

Wikipedia says it’s an Australian news and entertainment website owned by News Corp Australia, which is one of Australia’s largest media companies. That’s all we know, but it’s enough.

Not quite enough. One needs additionally to know–if one did not know it before–that the proprietor of News Corp is the notorious Rupert Murdoch. Of course, Murdoch isn’t, in the eyes of our Curmudgeon, quite the bete noire I think him to be, but that may be chiefly because SC’s judgement here is clouded by his appreciation of Megyn Kelly…

Tens of thousands of creationists flock to Mr Ham’s hi-tech Hollywood-style Creation Museum in Kentucky each year where they can see animatronic Adam and Eves interacting with a peaceful looking T.Rex, among other attractions.

*Snicker* A what? What’d they do, skip the teeth and claws and blunt the snout so old Rex looks like a giant version of Dino from The Flintstones? And about Adam and Eve: weren’t they supposed to have been kicked out of that peaceful Garden after they sinned by eating the wrong fruit? If they’re supposed to still be in the Garden of Eden, shouldn’t they be shown naked? And wouldn’t that draw visitors!

I still do not understand why creationists are so certain that finding evidence of recent living dinosaurs will disprove the Theory of Evolution. If I looked out my window now and saw a living dinosaur my reaction would not be that the Theory of Evolution is false. There is nothing in the ToE that requires dinosaurs to be extinct. Scientists consider them to be extinct because even though the fossil record tells us that they were once plentiful, there do not seem to be any dinosaurs around now.

Paleontologists conclude the dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago not on the basis of the fossils themselves but the geologic strata in which their fossil remains are found. From rock layers that date from about 220 million years ago up until about 65 million years ago we find dinosaur fossils. Rock layers younger than 65 million years old contain no dinosaur fossils.

If the creationists want to seriously undermine the Theory of Evolution they need to stop looking for recent dinosaurs and instead find that very elusive Cambrian rabbit.

But let us note that, contrary to popular belief, fossils do not comprise the totality of evidence for evolution. Yes, they do tell us some things about the history of life, but there are other categories of evidence. The tree of taxonomy. Biogeography.

Ken Ham (so search engines can find this comment), hereafter referred to as “Hambone”, thinks a mythical evaluation of dinosaur, combined with a story about a mythical early Homo sapiens pair will be world changing. Sounds like a waste of time to me. Ya wanta change opinion about evolution, spend your time looking for Haldane’s bloody Precambrian rabbit. (Apologies to Stephen Kennedy, who mentioned it above first).

Drove past “Creation Museum Exit 11” sign today on my way back to Michigan. About a half hour away, our family once visited Trammel Fossil Park, which is an exposed outcropping of fossils. We were geocaching, here is the earth cache posting. You can pick thru the fossils yourself. From the posting:

The rocks found here contain some of the oldest forms of invertebrate animals lacking a backbone. There were no amphibians, reptiles, dinosaurs, mammals, and most certainly no humans.

So Hammy could make a little drive, pick thru the fossils with his buddy Doctor Ment-to-lie and figure out why there are only invertebrates in this 50 foot tall cut-out. Pretty cheap research.

Oh, Ken’s already figured out why there are no vertebrates in what-you-call Precambrian rocks. See, those rocks were among the first formed from sediments that washed off the land during the Flood. They filled in the depths of the ocean basins, and naturally entombed the shellfish and stuff living there. Fish, even deep-sea fish, are smart and mobile enough to swim away, see. At first.

More flood, more run-off, more layers of sediments, more mobile animals get caught. Finally even the great land animals get washed off or engulfed. Humans, being smartest of all, climb the highest, and hence are only found in the top layers. Makes perfect sense.

Perfect explanation.

Then of course, after the Flood, all the water went somewhere – the Bible doesn’t say where – and the sediments were left. That perfectly explains what we see in the rocks, and to prove that, I am now going to shut my eyes, put my fingers in my ears and go lalala. Prediction confirmed! I can’t see any evidence against it, and you weren’t there anyway…

@Charles Deetz: Ol’ Hambone wouldn’t have to travel to the Trammel Fossil Park — his Creation Museum is sitting smack in the middle of some of the best fossil-hunting found on Earth — the Cincinnati area. Home to 450 million-year-old Ordovician strata chuck-full of trilobites, brachiopods, crinoids, bryozoans, horn corals, gastropods, pelecypods, and cephalopods — but not a single vertebrate. (Dave Luckett’s “explanation” wouldn’t work — the earliest hominid fossils are found in Africa, not atop Mt. Everest. However, Dave, you could make a fortune publishing books for sale through creationist churches, museums, and home-schooling suppliers. They’d eat that stuff up!)

And about Adam and Eve: weren’t they supposed to have been kicked out of that peaceful Garden after they sinned by eating the wrong fruit? If they’re supposed to still be in the Garden of Eden, shouldn’t they be shown naked?

I thought the “creation paradise exhibit” at the museum did indeed have Eve’s long hair conveniently covering her nakedness and Adam was assisted by a strategically placed ……uh ……growth of vegetation. [That was a close one.] I assumed that the exhibit following that one had them “post-fall” and clothed in animal skins along with one of their kids playing with a dinosaur or whatever. Am I wrong?

There’s no way Young Earth Creationists would not protest a “creation museum” which got the basics wrong. But I’ve never had the fortitude nor patience to actually visit the place. And I would feel too guilty to pay even a dollar to gain admission. It wouldn’t matter anyway. I’m told that the security office still has my Wanted: Dead or Alive poster stapled to the bulletin board next to the time-card clock. John Whitcomb never forgave me for The April Fools Day Massacre & the Seven Deadly Questions YECists Dread.

“spend your time looking for Haldane’s bloody Precambrian rabbit.”
But ….. but ….. that involves lifting those big fat creationist asses from their comfortable desk chairs! That’s just too much asked.
Just look at DL how creationist research is done. That’s the way to the TRVTH! And just ignore grumpy old geezers like Rsg.

Great story, Third Prof. But instead of Mission Impossible you should have played the theme of Dirty Harry.

On Stephen Kennedy’s insightful comments, I would just say that Ham is attempting to ‘refute’ deep time by saying dinosaurs only went extinct within the last 4,000 years or so (and were ‘recently’ created just like we allegedly were). No deep time, no microbes to Man evolution because evolutionary processes are not fast enough.